In October I blogged about attending an OSPIRG meeting, one where we were informed by the UO OSPIRG’s campus organizer (their paid employee) that the UO OSPIRG was being funded through the state of Oregon OSPIRG, which was in turn funded by the SOU and LCC OSPIRG chapters. I relayed these facts in my latest article titled “Lurking in the Shadows”.

A reporter from The Siskiyou, Southern Oregon University’s campus paper, wrote an article with this information–the same I was merely repeating from a paid employee of OSPIRG.

In the article, SOU OSPIRG’s chapter chair Sarah Westover was quoted as saying, “That is completely incorrect” and that “It’s simply not true.” She later added, “I think that it is unfortunate that a small group of individuals in espousing false claims.”

Of course, The Sikiyou‘s article failed to mention that I was not making any “claims” whatsoever. No, I was merely reporting what I had been told by a member of OSPIRG–just as The Siskiyou had asked a question of the SOU-OSPIRG chair, so had I asked a question of the UO OSPIRG representative.

Nevermind the fact that the article could have included a line of questioning with Westover about why students at the UO had been told this apparently “false” information about how the UO OSPIRG was being funded–by its own members, no less.

I relayed this information on to the author of the article, Becky Gilmore, and she had indeed told me that Westover had claimed the opposite of what I had been told by the UO chapter. I then proceeded to tell her that, “Well, one of the two OSPIRG people isn’t telling the truth. The question now becomes ‘why’ ?”

In any case, I’m glad that I could take the fall on this one. Instead of, you know, The Siskiyou actually doing their job by asking Westover the proper questions (since the reporter had been provided with the requisite information). Great work.

As for Westover, she should be aware that I am not making any “false claims”. I’m merely repeating what a paid member of your organization told me, verbatim.

You two might want to get together and get your own facts straight.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 20:56 by D and is filed under Media, OSPIRG. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.